1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a set of artificial teeth including at least a pair of upper and lower artificial molar teeth.
2. Description of the Related Art
With too much awareness of natural teeth, conventional artificial teeth are designed focusing on reproducing shapes of the natural teeth. In recent years, various shapes of artificial teeth have been proposed in order to produce the artificial teeth focusing on functions. Those shapes are elaborately designed so as to exert proper functions when the artificial teeth are precisely arranged.
However, even if highly functional artificial teeth can be produced at a designing stage, artificial teeth that are actually produced do not always have shapes and arrangement as designed, so that an occlusion state often becomes improper. An oral cavity is different between individual patients, and the size of the oral cavity, height and angles of residual ridges and the like vary in a clinical setting of an edentulous jaw. Thus, there is a need for advanced technique and experience for the arrangement of the artificial teeth at the time of producing a dental prosthetic appliance (plate dentures).
When the artificial teeth of the plate dentures are incompletely arranged, it is not possible to obtain an optimal occlusion state for sufficiently chewing food. Therefore, at a final stage of production of the plate dentures, an adjustment operation of scaling occlusal surfaces of the artificial teeth is performed so as to obtain a proper occlusion state. A polymerization distortion of resin for a plate or the like is caused at the time of producing the plate dentures. It is extremely difficult to predict such a distortion and arrange the artificial teeth in maxillary and mandibular arches so as to gain the arrangement, as designed, at the end. Therefore, in the conventional artificial teeth, even when the artificial teeth are arranged as carefully as possible in the production of the plate dentures, the adjustment operation of scaling the occlusal surfaces is inevitable in the end.
In a case where there are still remaining teeth or the like, it is more difficult to arrange the artificial teeth at optimal positions. Therefore, the artificial teeth often have to be displaced from the optimal positions. In this case, there is a need for a great deal of occlusion adjustment after producing the dental prosthetic appliance.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-280713 describes shapes of upper and lower artificial teeth and a relationship between those teeth. However, the invention of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-280713 is premised on an assumption that the artificial teeth are precisely arranged, and does not refer to adjustment of the occlusal surfaces in a case where the artificial teeth are not precisely arranged.